Its a sad day to day. Today we learned of the passing of Les Hale

I got to meet Les on several occasions throughout my years in the UNI Varsity Men’s Glee Club and then later while serving on the board of directors for an endowment fund in his name. He always had a story to tell about the group, his students and gettings started so many decades ago. Les talked about the Glee Club and not only its impact on the guys in the group and the men that they became. He talked about how that group may have saved lives. I know it sounds crazy. But Les told of a time when there was a war in Vietnam and a draft back home. How an A in this 1 credit class called the UNI Varsity Men’s Glee Club could be the difference of staying at UNI, or going back home with a high chance of getting drafted.

There has been some press recently about a “prankster” that duped several senior White House officials into replying to and acting on emails sent to their accounts that they believed were from son-in-law Jared Kushner. You can find more details in this CNN article.

What’s the big deal

LOL what’s the big deal with this. The administration is not known for thier strong use of technology or email in general. Trump doesn’t have time for that so he’s terrible at it right? Why would we expect his staffers to be any better?

A fresh face

If you’ve been a reader of this site, you’ve noticed the facelift of the site after many years of running the same theme. This is more than just a new theme, there is also a new back end powering the site. The previous site was running on Wordpress much like millions of other sites out there on the web. I’m going to use this post to talk about the reasons for the changes and the new way that I’m now writing and publishing articles.

Remember when you went back to school when you were little. What did you do on your summer vacation Billy? Well, I’ve had the last two weeks off for some additional paternity leave and wanted to recap what all I did. More for me than anyone else. Some technical, some definitely not.

• Played with my Twins… a lot.

• Played with my oldest son.

• Painted my son’s room

• Took my oldest to a movie.

Clearly I’m a bit behind this year with my goals. These are usually posted on 1/1 but this year, things are different. Different priorities, different timelines, different expectations, still trying to be a better version of myself. So here it is, time to write down the goals and put a plan in action to make it happen! My 2017 Goals!

• Solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 3 minutes – This one may seem silly and it very much is. But its a brain teaser and something that has sparked a bit of competition at the office. I’m all about camaraderie and I enjoy picking on co-workers as I crush their hopes and dreams in friendly competition 😉
• Run 365 miles this year Some could call this run a mile everyday but that just isn’t in the cards for me. My hope is when the calendar goes from ’17 to ’18, I have 365 miles under my belt and hopefully a few less pounds on the body. With the running crew at work, I think I can make this a reality. So far I’m on track with a month in. I already have 51 miles under my belt with a couple of months in and cold ass weather here in the midwest.
• Learn Swift I’ve dipped my toe in learning swift a few times now. But there has always been something that has come up that has distracted me. I’ve recently started the iTunes U course on Developing iOS Apps with Swift. Its been good so far and I’m eager to learn more. Hopefully I can get an app I’ve been wanting to develop off the ground in the process.

3 is a good number of goals given twins, lack of sleep and everything else that seems to crop up. Some are physically challenging, some are mentally challenging, 1 is just dumb. But they’ll give me something to work for along with everything else that happens with life. I’m hopefully a good father, husband, friend and co-worker in the process.